to the two nomads, and then the young thief leaped after the routing troop of albino monsters, leaving red tracks wherever his blades touched their blond-maned heads or dead-white backs as the things sought to flee.
Both Al Illa-Thuffi warriors joined Gord in the work of slaying the apes as they scrambled to get clear of the chamber and back to the safety of wherever they had come from. Then, from outside the chamber, in the passage where the remainder of the pack was routing through, human voices cursed and shouted.
'Stop! and 'Back! Back!' echoed in the arched corridor beyond the doorway. 'Kill!' and 'Obey!' could be heard as deep-voiced commands directed to the retreating monsters.
The two Thuffi warriors were busy finishing off some wounded apeoids that were thrashing about or attempting to crawl to escape. As the voices shouted their orders to the things beyond, Gord acted to delay a second inrush of the terrible little monsters. Kicking aside a carcass and cleaving one of the braver apes as it tried to re-enter the chamber, the young man grabbed the thick door with his left hand and began to swing it back toward the closed position.
A flying spear grazed his shoulder, for the light coming from inside the room made Gord a distinct target. In the next instant, the swinging door stopped and bounced back slightly, as if it had struck something. As the door rebounded, there was a thud and an audible groan from the empty air — and. amazingly, a crossbow bolt that had been heading directly for Gord abruptly stopped in midair. Scarcely a second later, a heavy billet of wood with protruding spikes came flying through the doorway and struck Gord's chest.
The spear wound was only a trifle, and the hurled aklys, as the spiked club was called, did little more than bruise Gord, for the mesh of elfin armor beneath his robe warded off the piercing iron hooks and points. But the metal projections of the aklys caught on the heavy cloth of Gord's burnous, and the one outside the chamber who had thrown the weapon hauled hard on the leather thong attached to the club's handle. Gord was jerked from his feet and toppled headlong toward the stone floor. Before he struck the rough granite, however, something only scarcely softer broke his fall.
Fortunately, Gord's comrades were right behind him as all this occurred. Achulka grabbed Gord's feet and hauled him out of the doorway and back into the room, just as Leda got behind the half-closed portal and shoved with all her strength against its thick planks. The door banged closed, and an instant later Leda dropped its bar down. In the interim, several more spears and a half-dozen quarrels had been discharged into the room, but none had scored a hit. More missiles could be heard thudding into the planks of the great door even as the dark elf shut it fast.
The invisible mass that had held Gord away from contact with the floor had been dragged into the chamber along with the thief. Grateful for this invisible cushion but unnerved by the whole affair at the same time, Gord hurriedly hoisted himself to his feet. The young adventurer bent down and prodded the seemingly empty air with his sword point. The weapon encountered a solid… something. Leda knelt beside the area and felt around, her hands moving swiftly over the unseeable thing they touched. A moment later she held a strange ring in her fingers and a very visible dead body was lying face down at her feet.
'Invisibility ring,' she said to Gord and the nomads as she put the loop of dull metal into her sash. 'He is a strange-looking sort,' she added, gazing down at the form.
The corpse was that of a thin, pygmylike albino, a human who closely resembled the yellow-maned baboons that had attacked them. 'He was slain by that little bolt,' Gord observed, noticing the object that was protruding from the corpse's upper back. 'The flesh is black around the shaft… poison?'
'Yes,' Leda answered. 'Are either of you wounded?' she then asked, turning to the nomads.
'Not heavily, and not from such missiles,' Achulka replied, 'although I fear that the apes have done for our brothers. Perhaps we were too hasty in removing the Arroden charms…'
Leda interrupted. 'Gord, see what you can do about blocking the door,' she said. 'Those beyond are sure to try to force it, magically or physically. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can do for our friends.'
As Leda turned to her spell-work, Gord did what he could. First, he took the spear that had been cast into the room and jammed the point into the door so that it kept the bar held down in a locking position. Then the young adventurer began to toss the bodies of the dead baboons into a mound that further blocked the portal. By the time he had made a pile as high as his chest and was dragging the last of the lifeless creatures over to finish the task, Leda had completed her ministrations and come to his side.
'Nizamee is finished,' she whispered to the young man. 'Those filthy apelings did for him. The other three will be fine in a few days, even though I hadn't sufficient power to heal them fully. I knew that you'd also need some of my magic, Gord, for you are a mess of wounds. Now hold still, and I'll do what I can to cure the worst of them.'
After a few seconds spent murmuring and gesturing, the dark elven girl began to touch Gord here and there, each probe on a painful area, each making him want to wince and draw away. His pride kept him motionless and silent. Then her touch seemed to grow lighter and cooler, and was no longer painful. 'You're doing it, girl,' he said.
'I've done it man!' she said with a tired swipe at her blood-smeared forehead.
The three nomads were on their feet and cleaning their swords. As Leda sat down on the floor next to Gord to rest, fatigue showing plainly on her lovely face, Achulka walked over to where the two were. 'We will be ready to fight again in a little while. Farzeel. We owe you and your warrior-woman our lives. We will fight with you to the death for that, but…'
'But?' Gord said with puzzlement.
'But if we manage to live and get clear of this place,' the nomad said solemnly, 'we will go no farther into the Ashen Desert. Two of our brothers have fought their last because of this place, desert and ruin. We will take our chances and go back alone if need be — or with you two, if you are wise. It is not the way to repay a debt of life, Farzeel, but neither is dying uselessly a measure of manhood.'
Before Gord could speak, Leda answered the warrior's pronouncement. 'We are held fast within this place, Thuffi. Let us deal with the matter at hand before worrying about going north or south above. Such talk is so much wind until our enemies outside the door are dead.'
Achulka smiled grimly at that, hefting his tulwar. 'We will do that, dark warrior-lady. Never fear.'
'We can remain bottled up in this chamber for a long time, Leda,' Gord said to bring things back to the reality of the situation, 'and we can die quietly in doing so. I also think that talk is foolish, and so is this hiding. Our foes can regroup and gather reinforcements if given enough time. That enables them to come at us when they are ready. Instead, let's prepare to attack them now, and fight the battle on our terms.'
Everyone was quiet for a moment, and in the interval the clank of weapon on stone and the shuffling of feet could be heard outside the barricaded doorway. 'You make good sense, Gord,' Leda said. 'I will do what I can, although I have little left In the way of spells. Once I am done with the priestess-craft, I will take up poor Nizamee's sword and do the best I can to fight by your sides.'
The nomad warriors struck their breasts at Leda's words, a signal honor. Gord too was bolstered by what the little elven girl had said. 'Be ready then, my dearest lady, to lay on with spell and weapon,' he told her. 'We four will clear the door and attack when you give the word.'
In a couple of minutes, the four men had quietly unstacked the mound of corpses that Gord had piled up. Then all five of the comrades gathered at a spot away from the door, so they could not be overheard, and Leda explained her strategy.
'Jahmut and Gord will open the door,' she said. 'Do not look out right away when he pulls open the portal, for I will cast a spell there to disorient the enemy. When I shout, then you will be able to look, and the passage will be lighted. You other two, loose arrows as quickly as you can, and then all charge to the foe with your blades.' Gord had no bow, but he-could use the spear that had been thrown into the chamber, and he would throw that as he rushed to close quarters with the apelings and their masters who awaited outside.
Jahmut stepped to the door and put his hands on the heavy iron ring that hung stapled to the planks. Gord lifted the bar, softly, placing it firmly in its upright position and securing it with another little bar that kept it from falling and accidentally locking the portal — a precaution made by the ancient keepers of this stronghold centuries ago. The other two Thuffi warriors were crouched a few feet away behind a wall of baboon bodies, their bows ready. Gord looked at Jahmut and nodded. As the nomad pulled on the door ring, Gord jumped back to be shielded by the door jamb. Leda was prepared, too; as the heavy construction of planks came open, she uttered an incantation and cast her spell.
A chorus of shrieks and cries sounded as the light created by Leda's casting blossomed forth and made the
